Thread by @NBCNews

Health care workers are facing growing skepticism and rage from patients, leaving workers frustrated and fearful amidst the fourth wave of the pandemic.

#NBCNewsThreads (1/9)
nbcnews.com/news/us-news/h…

Dr. Sheryl Recinos, a family medicine hospitalist in California, has treated people who, two weeks into hospital stays for Covid-related breathing struggles, still do not believe they have the coronavirus.

“It’s baffling. I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Recinos. (2/9)

The problem is on the rise across the country. In Missouri, one hospital is equipping staff with panic buttons after assaults by patients tripled in the last year. In Idaho, family members who do not believe Covid is real have accused doctors and nurses of killing patients. (3/9)

“A year and a half ago, the emotion that came with the influx of these patients was sympathy, empathy, remorse, guilt — and that well of emotion has dried up,” said Amy Arlund, an intensive care unit nurse in California. “What is left is anger and hostility and mistrust.” (4/9)

Arlund had a Covid patient in Sept. who refused to wear a specialized oxygen mask or to sleep on his stomach to help him avoid going on a ventilator.

“I reached my point where I just had to walk away,” said Arlund, who has lost six colleagues to the coronavirus. (5/9)

Dr. Mona Masood is the founder and chief organizer of Physician Support Line, a confidential hotline she created for doctors at the start of the pandemic. Her support line has received 3,000 calls since March 2020, and it is getting its highest volume of calls now. (6/9)

Masood said doctors call Physician Support Line feeling overwhelmed by how rudely they are being treated.

“They feel like they’re trapped,” she said. (7/9)

For Mawata Kamara, an emergency room nurse in California, taking mental health days off from work has been helpful. She has also started declining extra shifts, which she felt she couldn't do in previous surges of the pandemic.

“I’m not burning myself out again,” she said. (8/9)

If you are a physician or a medical student in need of mental health support, call the Physician Support Line at 1-888-409-0141 from 8 a.m. to 1 a.m. ET, seven days a week. Calls are free and confidential. (9/9)